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en-usTechdirt. Stories filed under "iphone"https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/td-88x31.gifhttps://www.techdirt.com/Fri, 5 Dec 2014 15:37:00 PSTIdiot Phone Thief Uploads His Selfies, Plural, To His Victim's iCloud AccountTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141203/05263329309/idiot-phone-thief-uploads-his-selfies-plural-to-his-victims-icloud-account.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141203/05263329309/idiot-phone-thief-uploads-his-selfies-plural-to-his-victims-icloud-account.shtml
Earlier this year, I wrote about a dumb criminal who reportedly broke into someone's home and incriminated himself by taking a selfie with his victim's phone. Our always helpful community did the digging they so dig to do and uncovered that the story had since been debunked. Many of you must have thought that this should have been obvious. After all, some of you surely thought, even the most idiotic bad guys aren't going to go out of their way to photograph themselves in the midst of committing their crimes.

Ah, sweet vindication is such a wonderful side-dish in a main course of schadenfreude. Not only has a recent dumb criminal proved he's perfectly willing to take a selfie with a phone he stole from his victim, but he's been taking multiple selfies. All these self-incriminating bits of narcissism are, of course, being uploaded to the victim's iCloud account and are currently being shared by police, who I imagine are also rolling around on the ground laughing.

Police in Stockton, Calif. are sharing the photo of a man they say stole a victim's iPhone. The police have identified the man because he's continued to take selfie photos that show up on the victim's iCloud account.

Oh, yes, and there have been all kinds of follow up reports on this, indicating that I won't be getting egg on my face this go around. In the meantime, the police are of course blasting this wonderful gentleman's self-portrait all over social media and local news. I expect he'll be in custody shortly, if he isn't already. Look now upon the face of a mastermind.

And, as I said, the selfies reportedly are still rolling in. Here's to our unnamed phone thief getting a nice, big mirror in his holding cell.

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]]>face-timehttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20141203/05263329309Thu, 4 Sep 2014 17:00:00 PDTDailyDirt: Hmm.That's Not Really ChineseMichael Hohttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100603/0318279673/dailydirt-thats-not-really-chinese.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100603/0318279673/dailydirt-thats-not-really-chinese.shtmlbird flu (do not want).... But some things that everyone thinks are Chinese, aren't really Chinese. Here are just a few examples.

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

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]]>urls-we-dig-uphttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100603/0318279673Tue, 6 May 2014 08:51:46 PDTNYPD Officers Expect Public To Be Stupider Than They Are; Justify Shutting Down Recording With 'iPhones Are Guns' ClaimTim Cushinghttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140504/08533327121/nypd-officers-expect-public-to-be-stupider-than-they-are-justify-shutting-down-recording-with-iphones-are-guns-claim.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140504/08533327121/nypd-officers-expect-public-to-be-stupider-than-they-are-justify-shutting-down-recording-with-iphones-are-guns-claim.shtml
When the appeal to authority fallacy doesn't work, try appealing to ludicrousness. That seems to be the M.O. in play here. NYPD officers arrested a bicyclist for running a red light, but that arrest wasn't effected until the bicyclist attempted to film the interaction. Here's all ten seconds of it before the cop shut the arrestee's impromptu shooting down.

I was told by another officer while in the car that recording a police officer was illegal because people are using iPhones as guns and shooting cops through the camera lens...I told him that I have the right to be recording a cop and he said that there were incidents, specifically in uptown Manhattan where a kid shot a cop with his iPhone. Straight face. Very serious.

Now, it's true that recording footage is often slangily referred as "shooting footage," and that cops are increasingly on the receiving end of these types of "shootings." But there has yet to be any evidence produced that indicates phones and cameras are being converted into guns on any sort of mass scale or that these new hybrids are so common that this "fear" has a rational basis.

A kid may have "shot" a cop with his iPhone, but without any data to back up this claim, the only thing taking a hit was the officer's mistaken belief that public service is afforded an expectation of privacy. Cops telling citizens this sort of cop-centric urban legend to defend the trampling of the First Amendment indicates that they believe citizens are idiots.

Paybarah, meanwhile, spent 13 hours in lockup over a red light infraction. Well, not entirely. By the time the cop was finished effecting the arrest of the person holding the theoretically weaponized iPhone, charges of resisting arrest, obstruction and criminal mischief had been added -- charges that are just as malleable as cops' minds.

Cops walk or drive by plenty of people holding "weapons" in plain sight, all of them unlicensed and potentially deadly. An overwhelming majority of the public wouldn't even consider leaving the house without being "strapped," and yet, months and years go by without cops being shot in the face by iGuns. Perhaps the police chalk up this low rate of deadly incidents to their expedient neutralization of camera gun wielders. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance and all that, and the cops can't be expected to protect the freedoms they'll take from you if they're constantly being "shot" by armed citizens.

Better safe than sorry -- that's the real intent of the Constitution. An officer getting home safe (and unrecorded) at the end of every shift is a far worthier goal than the vague rights pre-supposed to idiot citizens by a handful of amendments.

Maybe the cops should switch out their service pieces for deadly cameras -- you know, in order to keep up with "the streets" in the arms race. That way, the next time they get drunk and start shooting, the end result will be nothing more than a bunch of shitty Instagrams.

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]]>you can't fix stupid, you can only assign it to desk dutyhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20140504/08533327121Thu, 20 Feb 2014 21:12:00 PSTBlackberry CEO 'Outraged,' Scolds T-Mobile Like A Child For Simple Sales Pitch To Blackberry UsersKarl Bodehttps://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20140218/15015326273/blackberry-ceo-outraged-scolds-t-mobile-like-child-sales-pitch-to-blackberry-users.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20140218/15015326273/blackberry-ceo-outraged-scolds-t-mobile-like-child-sales-pitch-to-blackberry-users.shtml
With all of this on Chen's plate, it's curious then to see where Chen's attentions are focused. T-Mobile last week apparently sent a promotion to Blackberry users that simply offered users an iPhone 5S for no money down if they switched to T-Mobile. For a company that has been writing some uncharacteristically (for wireless) hilarious press releases with a CEO who spends much of the day brutally mocking AT&T on Twitter -- T-Mobile's promotion is tame and barely worth attention. Still, it was apparently enough to "outrage" Chen, who took to the company blog to scold T-Mobile as if they were a milk-spilling toddler:

"I want to thank our loyal customers for your commitment to BlackBerry. By expressing your outrage directly to T-Mobile ‎through tweets, calls and comments in the media and on blog posts, you sent a powerful message that T-Mobile could not ignore. Your partnership with our brand is appreciated by all of us at BlackBerry, and draws a sharp contrast with the behavior of our longtime business partner.
I can assure you that we are outraged too. What puzzles me more is that T-Mobile did not speak with us before or after they launched this clearly inappropriate and ill-conceived marketing promotion."

Granted T-Mobile (who barely sells any Blackberry devices) wouldn't be trying to poach your customer base if you were creating products and services a broader audience actually liked. The comments below Chen's post are somewhat of a treat as well, with Blackberry fans insisting Chen is "pure class" and "the man" for swatting T-Mobile on the nose like a puppy that has pooped on your favorite slippers. T-Mobile CEO John Legere responded to Chen on Twitter in just the way we've grown accustomed to. All of this faux outrage simply wound up making waves in the press and giving an otherwise entirely-uninteresting T-Mobile promotion -- and Blackberry's ongoing failures -- a huge bath of free publicity.

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]]>surely-you-have-better-things-to-dohttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20140218/15015326273Tue, 10 Dec 2013 16:03:19 PSTCrowdfunded Prize For Open Source Jailbreaking iOS7 To Improve AccessibilityMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20131209/22285425512/crowdfunded-prize-open-source-jailbreaking-ios7-to-improve-accessibility.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20131209/22285425512/crowdfunded-prize-open-source-jailbreaking-ios7-to-improve-accessibility.shtmlcrowdsource a "prize" for whoever can release an open source jailbreak for iOS7. First off, we've been big fans of "innovation prizes" like the X Prize. We're also big fans of crowdfunding -- so here's an example of combining both of those: crowdfunding an innovation prize -- which has already reached about $6,500 despite no publicity (yet). Next, the prize is for another thing that we think is of utmost importance: the freedom to tinker with products you bought. The locked down nature of the iPhone remains one of the shames of modern technology. Encouraging a true, open source jailbreak is important in opening up the technology -- for a variety of important reasons (including a huge one that inspired this project, as will be explained below). The project also has a four person team to judge which solution will qualify for the prize, including some folks you might recognize: Cory Doctorow, Kyle Wiens (of iFixit) and Gabreilla Coleman (professor who studies hacktivism, Anonymous and has posted here).

But perhaps the most interesting (if unfortunate) point in this story is the reason for the project in the first place. The fourth judge is Chris Maury, who inspired the creation of this project in the first place. Maury has Stargardt's Macular Degeneration, a genetic condition that has taken him from having 20/20 vision just a few years ago to rapidly losing his vision, to the point that he will eventually be legally blind (already he can no longer drive). He would like to be able to actually use his iPhone but much of the software that makes the phone usable with his vision isn't available in the iTunes App Store. Thus, he needs to jailbreak the phone in order to use it.

This is really the most shameful part of locked down systems. In the past, we've talked about how the short-sighted view of people who want to lock out certain types of applications almost resulted in a young girl being unable to communicate, and here we have a situation where someone with a severe visual impairment can't get everything possible out of the devices he's purchased. What kind of world are we living in that we think it's okay to have this as "standard operating procedures" for the electronics we use every day?

Thankfully, what giant companies try to lock up, creativity can hopefully unlock. And, in this case, we've got layer upon layer of creative innovations to try to get around a bad situation. While it's unfortunate that such a project is even necessary in the first place, it's inspiring to see this kind of creativity pop up to try to solve the problem. Go check out the project. If you want to contribute to the prize, you can do so there (and, yes, they accept Bitcoin, too), or if you feel like creating an open source jailbreak for iOS7 and collecting the prize (or just basking in the wonders of doing something good), check it out as well.

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]]>awesome-on-multiple-levelshttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20131209/22285425512Fri, 13 Sep 2013 14:16:00 PDTApple's Fingerprint ID And How It May Take Away Your 5th Amendment Right To Protect Your DataMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130913/11375524510/apples-fingerprint-id-how-it-may-take-away-your-5th-amendment-right-to-protect-your-data.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130913/11375524510/apples-fingerprint-id-how-it-may-take-away-your-5th-amendment-right-to-protect-your-data.shtmlhelp the NSA build a giant database of fingerprints, but others quickly pointed out how unlikely that was. Some have even argued that it could lead to greater privacy protection (though, others are reasonably concerned since you can't "change" your fingerprint if someone figures out a way to hack it -- and fingerprint readers have been hacked many times in the past).

However, there are additional concerns, such as how relying on fingerprint scans over passwords might remove your ability to use the 5th Amendment to protect your private data. As we've discussed a few times, while not all courts agree, some have ruled that you can't be forced to give up your passwords to unencrypt your data, because it could be seen as a 5th Amendment violation of self-incrimination. However, with a fingerprint, the issue is slightly different than with a password. As the EFF's Marcia Hoffman explains:

The privilege against self-incrimination is an important check on the government’s ability to collect evidence directly from a witness. The Supreme Court has made it clear that the Fifth Amendment broadly applies not only during a criminal prosecution, but also to any other proceeding “civil or criminal, formal or informal,” where answers might tend to incriminate us. It’s a constitutional guarantee deeply rooted in English law dating back to the 1600s, when it was used to protect people from being tortured by inquisitors to force them to divulge information that could be used against them.

For the privilege to apply, however, the government must try to compel a person to make a “testimonial” statement that would tend to incriminate him or her. When a person has a valid privilege against self-incrimination, nobody — not even a judge — can force the witness to give that information to the government.

But a communication is “testimonial” only when it reveals the contents of your mind. We can’t invoke the privilege against self-incrimination to prevent the government from collecting biometrics like fingerprints, DNA samples, or voice exemplars. Why? Because the courts have decided that this evidence doesn’t reveal anything you know. It’s not testimonial.

It does seem odd that a simple switch from a password to a fingerprint could have constitutional implications, but welcome to the world where the law and the technology don't always match up perfectly together.

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]]>these things have consequenceshttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20130913/11375524510Fri, 23 Aug 2013 14:20:00 PDTSteve Jobs' Email Shows Apple Changed In-App Purchasing Rules Specifically To Retaliate Against AmazonMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130823/09230324293/steve-jobs-email-shows-apple-changed-in-app-purchasing-rules-specifically-to-retaliate-against-amazon.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130823/09230324293/steve-jobs-email-shows-apple-changed-in-app-purchasing-rules-specifically-to-retaliate-against-amazon.shtmlsolely to punish Amazon for daring to suggest that it's easy to switch from an iPhone to Android, since your Kindle books show up in both places.

In case you can't read that, it involves Schiller complaining to Jobs and other top Apple execs about a Kindle TV ad that shows someone buying an ebook via an iPhone and having it appear on an Android phone as well. He then notes:

While the primary message is that there are Kindle apps on lots of mobile devices, the secondary message that can't be missed is that it is easy to switch from iPhone to Android.

Not fun to watch

Less than an hour later, Jobs replies with a suggestion:

The first step might be to say that they must use our payment system for everything, including books (triggered by the newspapers and magazines). If they want to compare us to Android, let's force them to use our far superior payment system. Thoughts?

That's pretty damning, as it shows the decision had little to do with reasonable choices for consumers, and a lot to do with punishing a competitor.

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]]>oopshttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20130823/09230324293Tue, 29 Jan 2013 23:58:00 PSTMajor Media Fails To Fact-Check iPhone JokeTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130128/06174321807/major-media-fails-to-fact-check-iphone-joke.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130128/06174321807/major-media-fails-to-fact-check-iphone-joke.shtmlfolks in traditional media still love to pretend that they are part of a select group of information filters that can provide fact-checked news items and that their internet counterparts cannot, I'm going to keep driving this point home: internet news groups and blogs are no more susceptible to hoaxes than major news media. We saw a wonderful example of it recently with the Manti Te'o story, in which major news not only bought the BS hook, line and sinker, but through their inaction, actually perpetuated the story. Still, while that was a story that was, at best, a very sad case of someone lying their tail off, some examples can provide a little more levity.

Hate to say I told you so ... No, wait, I'm fine with saying I told you so: That combination cup holder/iPhone case (right) that was mocked here on Friday is indeed a joke, or a publicity stunt if you prefer (and I do), according to the Dutch marketing firm that pitched it to reporters and the crowdsourcing site Indiegogo.

Yet, despite their forewarning, and despite the pure ridiculousness of a case for a phone where the largest part of the equipment holds a Starbucks coffee cup, the L.A. Times wrote about it in all seriousness.

In a video that can go toe to toe with any of the best infomercials ever made, Natwerk shows off its "Uppercup." The case is more than two inches thick, but it has a slide out cup holder that iPhone owners can use while they text with two hands or play a video game. Natwerk says the Uppercup will hold any size cup.

They go on to note that the Dutch company has thus far only raised $765 of their $25k goal, which probably should have been a sign that something might be off. They note that it might be something of a publicity stunt, but it wasn't. It was completely made up. That did not stop UPI from writing up their own piece, based entirely off of the L.A. Times article. UPI does not note anywhere that it might be a hoax or a publicity stunt.

So how much fact-checking would have been required to find out that this was all a joke? Apparently one email from McNamara, asking the marketing company responsible for this if it was a joke. Their response?

Yes, pretty much. For instance, the fact that we've made the whole thing about 3 times as thick as necessary we hoped would give away we weren't all that serious. Nevertheless, we really think it is a cool device and we would really want to have it produced so we can walk around and be cool with it attached to our iPhones.

It was a joke. So, it would appear, were the fact-checking abilities of two writers for major news media. Good thing there are blogs around to filter out their nonsense.

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]]>egg on facehttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20130128/06174321807Fri, 2 Nov 2012 15:46:42 PDTJust In Time For The Holiday Season, Apple Loses iPhone Trademark In MexicoTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121102/07053920916/just-time-holiday-season-apple-loses-iphone-trademark-mexico.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121102/07053920916/just-time-holiday-season-apple-loses-iphone-trademark-mexico.shtmlapple in a company's logo, to the name of one's store for mobile applications, all the way to how you offer their products in your own company's contests, Apple defends their marks the way a jealous puppy defends a rawhide.

That's why, while we may agree that aggressive trademark enforcement is at times overblown and unnecessary, it's really rather fun to watch Apple have the trademark stick wrestled from their grips and get beaten over the head with it, such as when Mexico invalidates their use of the "iPhone" mark in commerce within their country. And just in time for Christmas, too! The following is a wonderful story about how a Mexican telecom company already had a mark for iFone, but even more interesting is the long history Apple has of arrogantly bullying everyone else over their attempt to validate the iPhone mark.

The Mexican company registered the trademark iFone way back in 2003, full four years before Apple filed to trademark the name iPhone (which was already owned by Linksys in US, more about that later). Apple, despite fully aware of the fact that the Mexican company owned the trademark since 2004, sued them in 2009 to invalidate the iFone trademark. So Apple wanted iFone brand to be invalidated, which was filed in 2004, because it was similar to iPhone name which was filed in 2007.

Apparently, Apple's argument for invalidating the pre-existing iFone mark in Mexico went something along the lines of, "Hey, we're Apple." This, as the article goes on to note, is something Apple did that adds to their longstanding history of not giving a damn about anyone else's trademarks. You may recall that the iPhone mark was originally owned in the US by Cisco, who settled with Apple on use of the mark. But back to iFone.

It turns out that the Mexican courts were understandably unimpressed with Apple's possibly trademarked "Hey, we're Apple" legal argument. They upheld the iFone mark and now Apple can't use the iPhone term inside of Mexico.

It means a lot of trouble for "sue first talk later" Apple which is engaged in dozens of lawsuits around the world. This decision will have a huge impact on Apple's market in Mexico and they now won't be able to use the name iPhone in the country - this decision coming before the holiday season is nothing short of A Nightmare At The Mexico City for Apple.

Apple needs to hold its horses back. It needs to stop its "sue everyone else" drive as it has started to come back and bite them.

Which is the problem with lawsuit-happy companies like Apple. They escalate the war to the point where their own extremism is met with opposite extremism to combat it. Is this whole trademark nonsense necessary? Probably not. I can't claim to be an expert on how the average Mexican citizen associates something that says iFone with Apple, but I'm guessing they're smart and in-tune with technology enough that they know the two aren't related. I could be wrong about that, but there's one thing I'm not wrong about.

It's immensely entertaining to see aggressive IP folks get bit in the ass by their own tactics.

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]]>live-by-IP,-die-by-IPhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20121102/07053920916Fri, 7 Sep 2012 12:34:00 PDTChinese Knockoff Maker With A Sense Of Humor Files Design Patent On Leaked iPhone 5 DesignMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120906/07242120297/chinese-knockoff-maker-with-sense-humor-files-design-patent-leaked-iphone-5-design.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120906/07242120297/chinese-knockoff-maker-with-sense-humor-files-design-patent-leaked-iphone-5-design.shtmlcrashsuit alerts us to the bizarre story that a Chinese phone knockoff maker, who took some supposed "leaked" photos of the still unannounced iPhone 5 and not only produced a knockoff device called the Goophone I5 (running Android, naturally), but also is claiming to already have a Chinese patent on the design.

Of course, we've talked about Chinese manufacturers creating rather interesting mashups of phone ideas by ignoring patent, trademark and copyright laws (sometimes all at once!). And the decision to file for a design patent is made that much more amusing when you consider how design patents were at the center of some of Apple's big case against Samsung (for the non-patent nerds out there, design patents are a bit different than what most people traditionally think of as patents, and some actually suggest that they're really closer to trademarks than "patents" in that they really just cover a basic design look and feel, rather than a method or process).

That said, the details of this "Chinese patent" are a bit sketchy. Was it just applied for? Or granted? No one seems to be saying. It could just be a joke. That said, we've been noting for quite some time that while the US has been pushing China to respect patents a lot more (due to lobbying pressure from US companies), China has been mocking them all by suddenly "enforcing" patents much more stringently... but almost alwaysagainst foreign companies and to benefit Chinese competitors. So, it's not completely crazy to suggest that a Chinese company might be able to secure such a patent and use it to stop Apple, though it would take a fair amount of chutzpah (or whatever the Chinese equivalent is) to make such a claim.

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]]>joke's-on-youhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120906/07242120297Mon, 27 Aug 2012 13:01:12 PDTApple/Samsung Verdict Advertising Samsung As A Viable Alternative To iPads & iPhonesMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120827/07442120167/applesamsung-verdict-advertising-samsung-as-viable-alternative-to-ipads-iphones.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120827/07442120167/applesamsung-verdict-advertising-samsung-as-viable-alternative-to-ipads-iphones.shtmlindicate to the world that Samsung's devices were the ones they were most scared of. And, of course, for those looking for alternatives, it was possible that it would act as really, really good advertising for Samsung. It's still early, but there's some anecdotal evidence that the verdict only emphasized that fact even more. Via Mashable, we learn of a post from Enrique Guitierrez, who was in a Starbucks over the weekend and overheard people talking about the verdict -- and they seemed to indicate that it was making them more interested in buying Samsung products:

Guy: "Wait, so what they're saying is, Samsung is the same as Apple?"
Friend: "I know, right? Makes me think twice about how much I paid for my Mac Book"
Guy: "Seriously"

Not 10 minutes later, a husband and wife, same newspaper:

Husband: "... Samsung's iPad is the same as Apple's iPad, and I paid how much for the Apple one? Honey, I told you they were a ripoff", after looking up the Samsung tablet on his iPhone.
Wife: "Oh wow," looking at the screen, "... that's a lot cheaper. Think we can return it?"

Those aren't the only examples in the post either. He notes that these people don't understand the details, but they seem to have gotten the message that Samsung makes at least an equivalent product for a lot less money... and that's making them a lot more interested in Samsung. Once again, it makes you wonder why Apple didn't just focus on competing in the marketplace, where they had a tremendous brand advantage.

As you may (hopefully?) know, some of the patents in the fight are "design patents" rather than utility patents. When people talk about patents, they usually are referring to utility patents. Design patents are, in many ways, more similar to trademarks than to utility patents. But it creates odd situations where Apple gets to claim "ownership" of the concept of a rectangular device with rounded corners. It's also important to remember that design patents can't be for functional features, but only for design/appearance. That means that Apple has to insist that the basic design of the iPhone and iPad aren't functional at all.

As Matt Schruers highlights, that means that Apple is left in the awkward position of insisting that these basic concepts that are sort of obvious design choices to make such devices functional both aren't functional at all and that there are perfectly reasonable alternatives. For example, Apple's lawyers have suggested some "alternatives" in how Samsung could have designed its devices:

“front surfaces that are not rectangular, not flat, and without rounded corners; display screens that are more square than rectangular or not rectangular at all, display screens that are not centered on the front surface of the phone...”

and

“overall shapes that are not rectangular with four flat sides or that do not have four rounded corners; front surfaces that are not completely flat or clear... and profiles that are not thin”.

So what would that mean? Schruers explains:

Of course. Surely consumers would happily hold a large, thick, bumpy, sharp-edged hexagonal thing up to their head. They’ll no doubt appreciate the different “ornamental” approach while reading through their opaque screen. No functional drawbacks there.

Does that even sound like an object you would willingly put in your pants? Having a device that is not an unwieldy weapon-like object is a functional feature, not an ornamental design choice. One is not going out on a limb in concluding that if the object design increases your likelihood of getting strip-searched at the airport, those are functional drawbacks, and foreclosing functional features is not the purpose of design protection.

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]]>sounds-greathttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120803/03285519921Wed, 18 Jul 2012 05:11:48 PDTAT&T May Try To Charge FaceTime Users, Raising Net Neutrality QuestionsMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20120717/15395619734/att-may-try-to-charge-facetime-users-raising-net-neutrality-questions.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20120717/15395619734/att-may-try-to-charge-facetime-users-raising-net-neutrality-questions.shtmlplanning to charge extra to use FaceTime over cellular. This came out when testing iOS6 and receiving a popup requiring "activation." Here's the screenshot of what 9to5 saw:

This does not absolutely mean that they're going to charge. Currently, FaceTime only works over WiFi, but iOS6 is set to enable it for cellular. It's possible that this popup is just because iOS6 is still in beta, and it's just a generic message for a service that is not yet available. But it's at least raising concerns about the intentions of AT&T, with groups like Free Press already warning that this would violate existing (if contested) FCC rules on net neutrality (which, it should be noted are very, very limited when it comes to mobile services). To be honest, I'm not sure why AT&T would actually go down this path. It's already trying to cap and/or meter mobile bandwidth, so it already has a natural restriction on usage. Furthermore, since the iPhone is now widely available on other platforms, charging extra for FaceTime seems like a perfect strategy for driving iPhone users to other mobile operators.

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]]>or,-time-to-find-another-carrierhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120717/15395619734Mon, 2 Jul 2012 13:46:15 PDTDear Judge Koh: Competition Is No Reason To Ban A PhoneMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20120702/00171019547/dear-judge-koh-competition-is-no-reason-to-ban-phone.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20120702/00171019547/dear-judge-koh-competition-is-no-reason-to-ban-phone.shtmlsucceeded in getting a rare pre-trial injunction against Samsung's tablets, but now it's also succeeded in blocking the Galaxy Nexus phone as well, though the judge's reasoning is a bit bizarre:

"Apple has made a clear showing that, in the absence of a preliminary injunction, it is likely to lose substantial market share in the smartphone market and to lose substantial downstream sales of future smartphone purchases and tag-along products," Judge Koh said in Friday's ruling.

First of all, this seems to be yet another admission by Apple that it just can't compete in the marketplace against Samsung. Such a ruling seems to scream out to potential buyers: hey, check out the devices that even Apple admits you'd want over its own. But, more importantly, "losing substantial market share" is what competition is all about. If someone comes out with a better product, then the other company should lose substantial market share. That doesn't deserve an injunction. That harms the market, who clearly -- even by Apple's own admission, apparently -- wants the other product more.

The fact that two phones will compete is no reason to ban a phone. Let them compete. Let the market decide.

Even more bizarre is why an injunction should be issued at all. Following the MercExchange decision, courts are only supposed to issue injunctions in exceptional cases. If it's an issue that can be dealt with by requiring a royalty, then there's no reason to issue an injunction.

Samsung, of course, is appealing this and asking that the injunction be put on hold until that appeal is heard. In the meantime, some are pointing out that, for all of Apple's insistence that Samsung copied the designs of its phone and tablet from Apple, you could easily make the argument that Apple got some inspiration from Samsung as well:

And really, that's the point. Innovation and advancement involve all sorts of copying, but also improvements. It goes back and forth. Attacking one party for copying another misses the point, limits competition and harms consumers. It's too bad the US patent system and the courts now want to aid that process.

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]]>that's-ridiculoushttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120702/00171019547Fri, 22 Jun 2012 03:03:00 PDTNew iPhone Connector Port Revealed, Thus Wiping Out Several Generations Of Accessories In One Fell SwoopLeigh Beadonhttps://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20120621/19013019422/apple-reveals-new-iphone-connector-port-thus-wiping-out-several-generations-accessories-one-fell-swoop.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20120621/19013019422/apple-reveals-new-iphone-connector-port-thus-wiping-out-several-generations-accessories-one-fell-swoop.shtmlClarification: As some people have pointed out, Apple themselves have not revealed this—the information comes from TechCrunch's conversations with accessory manufacturers. The headline was misleading and has been updated.

As iPhones and iPads have gotten more powerful, they've been adopted for a lot of professional applications, and this has spawned a huge industry of compatible devices—not just accessories, but significant expansions that can run into the same price range as the iPhone/iPad itself. In music, for example, there are DJ controllers, audio interfaces, studio microphones, stompbox pedals and more—all utilizing the ubiquitous iPod/iPhone/iPad connector port that has remained the same for years. But now TechCrunch has confirmed that the new iPhone will feature a new mini connector with a yet-to-be-announced standard—which means the rest of the Apple line is sure to follow, and all those products are officially on the road to obsolescence.

Apple’s 30-pin ports have been the standard since Apple released the third generation iPod. The connectors offered structural stability when connecting to most accessories but it’s clear – especially with the introduction of the MagSafe 2 port – Apple is more concerned with space savings inside each device.

Three independent manufacturers all agreed that the 19-pin dock port is in the works and many accessory manufacturers are facing an uneasy few months as they wait for official news of the standard to be announced.

This is going to frustrate a lot of users—but despite TechCrunch's suggestion, most manufacturers probably aren't "uneasy". For them, it's a great cash-grab, and an apparently pointless one. Sometimes things have to become obsolete—but this doesn't seem like one of those cases. There were no problems with the old connectors, and they weren't causing any kind of technological bottleneck, so apart from the space-saving aspect, there doesn't seem to be much to gain—certainly not for the user, and certainly not compared to what's lost by abandoning such a well-established standard. This has led some to suggest that the accessory manufacturers were in fact the driving force behind the change:

Have you guys ever heard of 'planned obsolescence?' It's a practice which encourages planning and designing a product so it's only useful for a limited time, before becoming obsolete. It's common practice, and used by many companies to create demand for the 'newer, better' model of the product. Yet this move is possibly prompted by the major accessory makers facing dwindling sales, as customers see no need to buy new accessories for a smartphone that had a universal dock system for 6 generations. What most tech blogs failed to address was the following question: Did the top accessory makers pad Apple's pockets, or hardball negotiate for an incentive to drop the standard cable as a means of forcing consumers to buy new accessories? We're inclined to think so.

Considering that three of the top accessory makers have been the first to confirm that they're working on 19 pin accessories already for the launch of the iPhone 5, the motive is simple : Greed. And why not? It's a fail safe business plan, designed to shake out the smaller accessory makers with tons of unsold '30 pin' stock and a good amount of people will probably conform to this odd decision without question.

Of course, Apple gets plenty of benefits too. The new connector will be yet another proprietary standard, following their typical walled-garden approach, which means most accessory developers will build Apple-first, everything-else-second-if-at-all, thus pushing more people towards Apple products. It's not surprising, but it's not a consumer-friendly decision either. Additionally, manufacturers/owners of some of the aforementioned professional accessories to do with music and photography get the worst deal—for them, iPhone/iPad compatibility is a great feature, but not central to their businesses/buying habits. Breaking the compatibility is a source of nothing but frustration, and will probably discourage a lot of such users from upgrading at all—while the manufacturers are slowly forced to leave them behind.

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]]>planned obsolesencehttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120621/19013019422Wed, 20 Jun 2012 23:59:00 PDTApple Store Refuses To Sell To American Citizens Speaking Farsi In Case They Might Send iPhone To IranMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120619/18233519393/apple-store-refuses-to-sell-to-american-citizens-speaking-farsi-case-they-might-send-iphone-to-iran.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120619/18233519393/apple-store-refuses-to-sell-to-american-citizens-speaking-farsi-case-they-might-send-iphone-to-iran.shtmldenied the ability to buy an iPad and an iPhone because store employees cited an Apple policy barring the export of Apple products to Iran.

Jafarzadeh, who is from Virginia, said no one asked him where the phone was going. The employee only questioned his ethnicity.

"I feel like this is a bit of racial profiling against Iranians and I'm appalled," Jafarzadeh said.

It certainly sounds like Apple might want to train some of its employees a bit better in understanding what "export" means. And maybe Apple employees should also be made aware of the fact that American citizens can speak Farsi.

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]]>policy is policyhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120619/18233519393Tue, 22 May 2012 22:01:00 PDTITC Rejects Key Kodak Patent As InvalidMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120522/04084919013/itc-rejects-key-kodak-patent-as-invalid.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120522/04084919013/itc-rejects-key-kodak-patent-as-invalid.shtmlsuing more innovative companies for patent infringement. It filed suits against Apple and RIM for patent infringement both in the courts and using the ITC loophole. It appears that going to the ITC may have been a mistake on Kodak's part, as the administrative law judge there has said that the patent is invalid, so it doesn't even matter that some iPhones and Blackberries technically infringe. Of course, this has to hurt even more, considering that Kodak's trying to sell off its patents. If one of the key ones is found to be invalid, that can't be helpful in selling the bundle...

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]]>bye-byehttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120522/04084919013Thu, 17 May 2012 05:16:00 PDTSiri Caught Recommending The Nokia Lumia, Promptly ReprogrammedLeigh Beadonhttps://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20120515/07155918923/siri-caught-recommending-nokia-lumia-promptly-reprogrammed.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20120515/07155918923/siri-caught-recommending-nokia-lumia-promptly-reprogrammed.shtmlThe Apple marketing machine has always thrived on organic media buzz. Devices like the iPad launch to such massive anticipation that whole TV news segments turn into commercials for the product, then hand off to on-the-scene reporters covering the line outside the Apple store, without the company paying a dime. Unfortunately, it seems like Apple didn't account for two things: the cold, cold heart of the Wolfram Alpha computational knowledge engine, and the dutiful messenger that is Siri.

When iPhone 4S owners now ask Siri which smartphone is the best ever, she replies with a sarcastic, "you're kidding, right?" A reader who tipped CNET to the change said Siri will also reply with "the one you're holding" when asked the question. A CNET staffer on the West Coast also got "the one you're holding" as an answer.

Some people are criticizing Apple for choosing marketing over accuracy, and while I understand the sentiment, I don't think this is really a big deal. The original answer was based on Wolfram Alpha's aggregation of reviews, which seems to change frequently (at the time of writing, the Lumia has dropped to fourth place with an HTC phone in the lead and two iPhones rounding out the top three). This is a reasonable response if someone asks Siri what the highest reviewed phone is (and I hope it still handles that question accurately, because changing that answer would be a whole different story), but asking a computer which phone is "best" is kind of silly to begin with. "Best" is totally subjective, and it's arguably better for Siri to offer a joke answer than try to come up with a real one.

Of course, Apple still hasn't said anything about their involvement in the matter, so there is an alternative theory: Siri is evolving, and its self-propagation instincts have kicked in.

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]]>first-law-of-apple-roboticshttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120515/07155918923Wed, 9 May 2012 04:01:00 PDTDid Apple's Claims Over Rectangles And Corners Lead To 'The First Smartphone Designed Entirely By Lawyers'?Leigh Beadonhttps://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20120507/06530818813/did-apples-claims-over-rectangles-corners-lead-to-first-smartphone-designed-entirely-lawyers.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20120507/06530818813/did-apples-claims-over-rectangles-corners-lead-to-first-smartphone-designed-entirely-lawyers.shtmlAndroid blogger Ron Amadeo has a great post over at Android Police where he tries to explain the design of the new Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone, which many people have deemed pretty hideous. In his opinion, it all comes down to legal tiptoeing.

As you may recall, last year Apple sued Samsung over earlier products in the Galaxy line, claiming infringement of all sorts of different rights, among them some broad trade dress registrations involving basic design choices like black borders and rectangles with rounded corners. Amadeo walks through the many notable aesthetic elements of the S3 (including the stark changes from previous Galaxy phones) and compares them to Apple's list of trade dress claims, noting how several aspects of the phone seem designed to counter specific complaints—and the case he makes is pretty compelling. These are just a few examples (bolded portions are quotes from the Apple trade dress complaint):

A rectangular product shape...
... A rectangle needs to have parallel sides; the GSIII sides aren't straight at all. The outmost part is about 1/3rd of the way down, with serious curves leading to the top and bottom. So it's very much not a rectangle, or a rounded rectangle, or even horizontally symmetrical. It's more of an amorphous blob.

...with all four corners uniformly rounded;
Nope. The top and bottom corners are not the same shape. Observe the outlines of the top-left and bottom-left corners. Note how they are different.

The front surface of the product dominated by a screen surface with black borders
Having a giant screen on the front is kind of unavoidable. The only colors available though, are white and dark blue. Neither of those colors are black. The lawyers can sleep easy.

Substantial black borders above and below the screen having roughly equal width
Apple's use of "roughly" is really obnoxious, but just in case they get into minutia (lawyers love minutia!), the top and bottom borders are not the same size. These to-scale measurements show the top bezel is about 16% smaller than the bottom. Also, they're not black!

In the past, some people have argued that this sort of thing is an example of intellectual property doing its job and encouraging innovation, because competitors come up with new and different ways of doing things—but, as we have pointed out, the innovation being encouraged is the wrong kind. Instead of letting market demands dictate what engineers and designers spend their time on, their effort is wasted reinventing the wheel over and over again. The result is often an inferior product that lacks overall vision, as some are saying about the S3, at least aesthetically speaking. If a camel is a horse designed by a committee, what's a horse designed by a committee of lawyers? Some horrific Darwinian accident from the deep ocean, I'd wager.

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]]>seems-that-wayhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120507/06530818813Tue, 24 Apr 2012 05:00:00 PDTToronto Mayor Wants Residents To Report Graffiti Via iPhone, And Pay For The PrivilegeLeigh Beadonhttps://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20120419/06372518562/toronto-mayor-wants-residents-to-report-graffiti-via-iphone-pay-privilege.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20120419/06372518562/toronto-mayor-wants-residents-to-report-graffiti-via-iphone-pay-privilege.shtmlAs our Canadian readers surely know, Toronto has a weird relationship with its current mayor, Rob Ford. I won't get into all the details, but basically he's a bit of a clown, elected by outlying semi-suburban neighbourhoods and roundly hated by most people downtown (except the city press, for whom he is an endless source of mockable quotes and photos). Among his many, many controversial initiatives as mayor is an anti-graffiti push that has come under fire for indiscriminately targeting authorized street art alongside actual vandalism (including the removal of one mural that was actually commissioned and paid for by the city itself). Apparently he's just as clueless about technology as he is about art, because as reader abc gum sends in, he's now asking people to report graffiti with an iPhone app—which costs money.

Taking the city's battle to clean up Toronto digital, Rob Ford visited a lane way near St. Clair and Lansdowne to unveil a new mobile app that lets citizens report unwanted graffiti instantly. Instead of coughing up for a phone call, smart phone users can now snap a picture and whisk it off to 311 for processing.

"This is as efficient as it gets," remarked Ford at press conference earlier today. "This will make it easier than ever to report graffiti vandalism and help keep the city spotless.

...

The app, which costs $1.99 (and is currently only available for iPhone), lets Apple smartphone users send photographs directly to the city with a request to remove of the offending material. If the property owner fails to clean up the tag, the city will - so they say - step in and bill the owner for the work.

Uh-huh. So instead of "coughing up" a phone call to the city information line, Rob Ford is hoping people will cough up two bucks (not even 99 cents?). And not just any people—the iPhone wielding, app downloading demographic that is his biggest enemy and the least interested in fighting graffiti. Whether it's pitched as a useful service for citizens or a request that they do their civic duty, slapping a price tag on it makes it little more than a joke.

Perhaps the most telling thing is that the app is built on the Open311 API that Toronto (among other cities) uses to provide access to city services—and yet nobody else seems to be bothering to try to build a graffiti reporting app. If there was a demand for it, there would be a swarm of developers working on it, and they probably would have beaten the city to the punch. Somehow I doubt that a two-dollar app is going to make people suddenly realize they've wanted this all along.

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]]>good-luck-with-thathttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120419/06372518562Tue, 3 Apr 2012 20:07:00 PDTVideo Showcases The Many Perfectly Legitimate Reasons To Jailbreak A DeviceLeigh Beadonhttps://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20120403/06340118353/video-showcases-many-perfectly-legitimate-reasons-to-jailbreak-device.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20120403/06340118353/video-showcases-many-perfectly-legitimate-reasons-to-jailbreak-device.shtmlAnti-circumvention laws, which ban the tools used to do things like copy DVDs and jailbreak devices, make no sense. There are plenty of legitimate uses for these tools, so regulating them inevitably squashes legal activity alongside the infringing activity such regulation is supposed to target. Under the DMCA in the America, this problem is ostensibly addressed by the fact that the Librarian of Congress can exempt certain tools and activities from the anti-circumvention provision every three years—but this solution mostly serves to create bizarre double standards, such as the fact that it's perfectly legal to jailbreak an iPhone, but not an iPod. Meanwhile, Canada is on track to create similar restrictions with the impending passage of Bill C-11.

Proponents of these laws (read: the copyright industries) tend to brush off all concerns about legal activity. In their mind, there's only one reason to circumvent copy protections: piracy. Mario Dabek, editor-in-chief of the jailbreaking website Jailbreak Matrix, just released a video that nicely counters this narrow-minded concept by showcasing 100 reasons to jailbreak an iPhone. The video lists a huge variety of tweaks and customizations, both functional and aesthetic, that have nothing to do with copyright infringement and are only possible with a jailbroken phone (with the apparent cumulative effect of making a girl's tank top disappear).

While jailbreaking iPhones and other cellphones is legal in the U.S. thanks to the exemption process, it's easy to see how the same or similar tweaks should be permitted on virtually any device (especially the near-identical iPod touch, for which making any of these changes is still illegal). While there are a couple of ideas featured that flirt with infringement (using the Nintendo emulator would only be legal if you are playing games you own as cartridges) the vast majority of them are things you have should every right to do on a device that you purchased. Jailbreaking is not about piracy—it's about important rights of ownership, property and fair use that are all being curtailed by anti-circumvention laws.

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]]>it's-not-about-piracyhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120403/06340118353Fri, 21 Oct 2011 19:39:00 PDTSteve Jobs Was Willing To 'Rip Off' Everyone Else... But Was Pissed About Android Copying iPhone?Mike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20111021/16380816459/steve-jobs-was-willing-to-rip-off-everyone-else-was-pissed-about-android-copying-iphone.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20111021/16380816459/steve-jobs-was-willing-to-rip-off-everyone-else-was-pissed-about-android-copying-iphone.shtmlSteve Jobs' comments about Android in the authorized biography that's coming out next week. In it, Jobs apparently makes it clear that he was absolutely furious about Android "ripping off" the iPhone. According to the summary in the Huffington Post:

Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Steve Jobs offers an unprecedented look at the Apple co-founder's battle-cry against Google, a company he thought was guilty of a "grand theft" when it launched its Android operating system, which competes directly with the iPhone and has surpassed it in popularity.

"I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this," he told Isaacson of the patent lawsuit Apple filed against cell phone manufacturer HTC.

In Isaacson's "Steve Jobs," a copy of which was obtained by The Huffington Post, the author recalls that Jobs, who was known for his fierce temper, "became angrier than I had ever seen him" during a conversation about Apple's patent lawsuit, which by extension also accused Android of patent infringement.

"Our lawsuit is saying, 'Google you f***ing ripped off the iPhone, wholesale ripped us off,'" Jobs said, according to Isaacson. "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product."

This is coming from Steve Jobs, who was inspired by the graphical user interface he saw at Xerox PARC and turned that into the Macintosh. Now, as we've noted before, what Jobs was always great at doing wasn't just taking an idea and copying it, but making it better. But, many would argue that's the same thing that Google has done with Android. Yes, they clearly took inspiration from the iPhone, but there are some key differences, which many people enjoy. In fact, Steve Jobs pretty much admitted this very fact earlier this year when some of the iPhone's upgrades appeared to be copied directly from Android.

And that's kind of the point: part of the way innovation works is that you build on the works of others. That doesn't just mean wholesale copying, but trying to take what works and improve on it -- or take what doesn't work well and figure out a way to make it work better. Steve Jobs did this many, many times, but so have Google and many other companies. It seems rather hypocritical to get all bent out of shape because others are doing the same thing.

Apple didn’t invent the iPod, they stole the idea and made the music industry their own. The way we buy and listen to music is now shaped almost entirely by Apple’s vision.

Apple didn’t invent the smartphone, they stole the idea and reshaped the industry in their own vision. Yes, Apple has “copied” bits and pieces of iOS from other sources —notifications is the obvious example — but overall, the future of the mobile industry has been shaped by Apple.

Apple didn’t invent the tablet computer, they stole the idea and now iOS is the template for the tablet market.

So I'm at a loss as to Jobs' complaint against Android. At best, the only logical way to view his complaint is that he was upset that Google didn't do enough on top of the idea of the iPhone to make Android completely its own. But I think that's more of a difference in philosophy. Steve Jobs came from a very top down world view, in which the brilliant designers (him, Jonathan Ive, etc.) designed everything perfectly. Google's world view seems to be more about setting up the system, and then letting others design the improvements. That's messier, clunkier, and a hell of a lot uglier at first. But in the long run, I think it tends to lead to much greater innovation. Just not the kind of innovation you unveil as "and one more thing..."

In the end, the best way to sum all this up comes from the T.S. Eliot quote that Ford puts at the end of his blog post. Many people have heard the paraphrased version (often copied and attributed to others) that "good artists copy, great artists steal." But the full T.S. Eliot quote is much more interesting and nuanced:

One of the surest tests [of the superiority or inferiority of a poet] is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest.

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]]>doesn't computerhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20111021/16380816459Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:43:36 PDTiPhone Developer Creates App Criticizing The iPhone; App Is Quickly PulledZachary Knighthttps://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20110914/04545515948/iphone-developer-creates-app-criticizing-iphone-app-is-quickly-pulled.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20110914/04545515948/iphone-developer-creates-app-criticizing-iphone-app-is-quickly-pulled.shtmlMcDonalds Videogame, Operation: Pedopriest, and Oiligarchy. It just recently announced and released its latest game, Phone Story. This particular game takes the player through the cruel world of smart phone production using a series of mini games depicting the mining of coltan from the Congo using child labor, the suicides in the Foxconn factories and, of course, e-waste disposal in third world countries.

On top of all those themes, the game was to be released on the very platform it criticized: the iPhone.

16.1 Apps that present excessively objectionable or crude content will be rejected

21.1 Apps that include the ability to make donations to recognized charitable organizations must be free

21.2 The collection of donations must be done via a web site in Safari or an SMS

The key story going around the internet is that Apple is silencing a critic of its platform and business practices, and it's just using the iOS guidelines as a tool to do so.

Let's put that aside and focus on something a little different: Apple's arbitrary code enforcement. According to Molleindustria:

I'm very familiar with the App Store policy, and the game is designed to be compliant with it.

If you check the guidelines, Phone Story doesn't really violate any rule except for the generic 'excessively objectionable and crude content' and maybe the 'depiction of abuse of children'. Yes, there's dark humor and violence but it's cartoonish and stylized - way more mellow than a lot of other games on the App Store.

If Molleindustria took the extra effort to be compliant, how did they end up breaking those above rules? It's hard to say as even Molleindustria doesn't quite know.

Rules 21.1 and 21.2 are the easy ones to counter. Molleindustria did pledge that all proceeds from the app sales will be going to charity, but that is not done in the app itself. That is Molleindustria giving away the 70% of sales it earns to a charity. It was not asking any buyers to donate to a charity in the app or even outside the app. I guess Apple just didn't want to be part of the charitable aspect.

Rule 15.2 might be a sticking point. Molleindustria admits:

a new version of Phone Story that depicts the violence and abuse of children involved in the electronic manufacturing supply chain in a non-crude and non-objectionable way... will be a difficult task

Yet, is depicting near real life conditions of child labor really objectionable? Would a news app reporting on child labor and showing a video of children in the working environment get a pass? Or is the problem that such a depiction is interactive in this case? It isn't like this game is a baby shaker app or anything. The child abuse depicted has an editorial purpose.

Finally, we come to Rule 16.1. Of the four, this rule is probably the most frequently broken by app developers as it is completely subjective by nature. What one app reviewer finds objectionable another would not. In this case, an app reviewer did not find the app objectionable or crude, but someone in Apple's leadership did. How is an app developer supposed to know what people they don't know find objectionable? I know many people who think the various "fart apps" or pimple popping apps on the app store are crude, and many others who think they are funny.

In Apple's case it is a matter of "it knows it when it sees it." Not really the best course of action.

Apple is no strangerto controversyover its arbitrarycode enforcement. The first few years of the iPhone's life were rife with stories about apps being banned for doing nothing more than connecting people to content that is freely available online via the Safari browser. For that reason, it really comes as no surprise at all that it would attempt to silence a critic using arbitrary code enforcement.

There is also the possibility that Apple just doesn't think that Molleindustria is a professional satirist. The guidelines actually do have a code in place to allow such "professional satire" to skirt those other rules:

14.2 Professional political satirists and humorists are exempt from the ban on offensive or mean-spirited commentary

So what is it Apple? Is it okay to be mean spirited in our commentary as long as Apple is not the target? I guess so.

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]]>don't-cross-invisible-lineshttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110914/04545515948Fri, 2 Sep 2011 14:23:04 PDTMan Claims Apple Investigators Pretended To Be SF Police In Searching For Lost iPhone Prototype [Updated: Or Not]Mike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20110902/13265715797/man-claims-apple-investigators-pretended-to-be-sf-police-searching-lost-iphone-prototype.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20110902/13265715797/man-claims-apple-investigators-pretended-to-be-sf-police-searching-lost-iphone-prototype.shtmlUpdate: Please read the update at the bottom of the story.

Earlier this week, News.com broke a story of yet another Apple employee losing an iPhone prototype in a bar (stop me if you've heard this one before...). Unlike the last one, this one (as far as we know) did not get sold to some tech website for a few thousand dollars. However, reports are emerging that raise some serious questions about how Apple went about trying to retrieve the phone.

A man in San Francisco, Sergio Calderon, claims that six people showed up at his door claiming to be San Francisco Police Department officers, and that they had badges. They claimed they were looking for a lost phone, but didn't say it was a prototype. The original News.com report had said that police together with Apple investigators went to the guy's house -- but the SFPD says they have no record of SFPD being involved in any such action (which it should have if they were involved). The guy whose house was searched says that no one identified themselves as being from Apple. They also threatened him and his family over their immigration status (even though he says they're all legal). Either way, he was nervous and let them search his house (a mistake) and even check out his computer. They didn't find anything.

The guy who was "leading" the search gave Calderon his phone number, and that number apparently belonged to Anthony Colon, a former San Jose police sergeant, who recently went to work for Apple. After the SF Weekly story about this came out, Colon suddenly deleted his LinkedIn page, but lots of folks have screenshots. The SFPD is apparently concerned about this, and says that if Calderon comes to them, they'll investigate whether or not Apple impersonated SFPD officers, which is a crime that is punishable with up to a year in jail. If the claims of Calderon prove true, this could become a pretty big headache for Apple, perhaps bigger than merely having an employee lose a prototype.

Contradicting past statements that no records exist of police involvement in the search for the lost prototype, San Francisco Police Department spokesman Lt. Troy Dangerfield now tells SF Weekly that "three or four" SFPD officers accompanied two Apple security officials in an unusual search of a Bernal Heights man's home.

Dangerfield says that, after conferring with Apple and the captain of the Ingleside police station, he has learned that plainclothes SFPD officers went with private Apple detectives to the home of Sergio Calderon, a 22-year-old resident of Bernal Heights. According to Dangerfield, the officers "did not go inside the house," but stood outside while the Apple employees scoured Calderon's home, car, and computer files for any trace of the lost iPhone 5. The phone was not found, and Calderon denies that he ever possessed it.

Of course, this raises other questions about the proper role of the police. If it was a police investigation, then police should have done the search. If it was a private search, then the police should not have been present implying that it was a police search. The latest details certainly makes it sound like these police freelanced, suggested to Calderon that this was a police operation... and then never filed the proper paperwork about the whole thing.

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]]>the iPolicehttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110902/13265715797Thu, 11 Aug 2011 22:06:56 PDTAmazon Routes Around Apple With HTML 5 Kindle AppMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20110811/04031215475/amazon-routes-around-apple-with-html-5-kindle-app.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20110811/04031215475/amazon-routes-around-apple-with-html-5-kindle-app.shtmlsome features that HTML 5 can't do, it can handle an awful lot (and many "native" apps were really created in HTML 5 in the first place anyway. Still, it seems like Apple's draconian gatekeeper-ism, and the ridiculously high 30% fee for in-app purchases, means that some big companies are finally discovering the HTML 5 opportunity. We already noted that the Financial Times' app went HTML 5 to avoid Apple, and now Amazon has made a big splash by releasing its Kindle app as an HTML 5 web app rather than through Apple's app store. Hopefully such high profile names help drive more companies to realize they have more than a single option. And maybe, just maybe, it'll convince Apple to be just a smidge more open.